Top positive review

Awakening with no memory and with a rifle armed girl kneeling over him, Otonashi finds himself in a school afterlife where attending classes makes you disappear. Otonashi joins with a group of rebellious teens determined to fight against god and the Student Council President, Angel.

This two disc DVD set includes all thirteen episodes of the 'Angel Beats!' anime as well as the light comedy OVA. This series is an interesting mix of slapstick comedy and highly emotional scenes that work quite well together, although I am sure some people would find the flipping from one to the other a little jarring. When I first watched this series I considered it to be one of the single saddest series I had ever seen and, while I probably wouldn’t go that far any more, the emotional moments can still be quite tear-jerking and the final episode and a half still rank as some of the most emotional moments from any anime I have seen.

The animation of the series is very good, even seven years on from its original release, and has some very entertaining (if limited) action in places. The character designs are nice with none of the various characters being too annoying. This series was one of the first that I ever watched all the way through in the original Japanese and while I do think that the original is better (and probably a little more emotional), the English dub is still relatively good, although it does still leave the songs the characters sing in Japanese. Both the Japanese and English are included on the DVDs. Of the English voice cast, all give very good performances but Brittney Karbowski as Yurippe, Emily Neves as Angel and Greg Ayres as Naoi are my favourites. On the downside, Blake Shepard’s performance as Otonashi is a little flat but this does seem to suit his character in places.

The plot of the series is generally quite good but it can seem a little light and rushed in places. Much of this is possibly due to the fact that the series was, apparently, originally meant to be twenty six episodes long but was cut in half resulting in some truncated arcs and some rushing towards the end. While this is a little disappointing there are still some very nice moments throughout the series with my favourite parts being the emotional backstory flashbacks of the various characters, particularly that of the main character Otonashi.

The only special features on the DVD, other than the OVA, are clean versions of the opening and closing credits but luckily these are both beautiful songs and animation.

Overall, while I probably don’t rate this series as highly as I used to, it was still a very enjoyable anime and is well worth four to four and a half stars.

Top critical review

As with the other UKManga releases that I've had, the subtitle translation is incorrect or misleading,its as if its been done by somebody that has no knowledge of anime, or respect for it. Just reading the description on the back of box made me cringe.

I checked through the first episode, there's 2 sentences which are actually completely mistranslated ( just in the first episode ! )firstly when Yuzuru says to Yuri, 'I need some time to think', to which she responds 'sure, as long as you spend it here', in this versionit says 'anywhere but here'. The next mistake, during the discussion on the roof Yuri suggests that Yuzuru pokes the girls in an 'unusual way',but in this version that is confused with a certain medical procedure.

There were a lot of parts which were roughly accurate but misleading, for example the 'Afterlife battlefront' is called the 'Underworld battlefront', being erased or disappearing is called 'obliterated' ( similar words but with somewhat different meanings ), when Yuri asks for the new name he is supposed to say 'I don't care battlefront' but in this version he just says 'screw you', which isn't accurate to his personality and takes away from the original writing.

With such a company as the main distributor for anime here, there's not much hope for it ever becoming widely appreciated.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------By the way, this anime is perfect, its close to being my favorite.

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I got recommended this anime by a friend.In brief its a must watch.The anime explores a group of students experiencing purgatory like world where their life is in transition to move on.The cast all follow a girl who leads a group by the name of not dead yet battlefront.You see how the lives of each of them change through this series and how one person has the will to guide everyone down the right path.

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Following the japanese idea of teen school life is the greatest time of your life, This series follows a group of teens that have died and before they get reborn have a chance live out their greatest heart felt wish in a ghost type highschool,but not knowing this they fight against the system (particularly one girl who they think is a angel trying to kill them) thinking to cease existing here is to die. so this story basically follows a new guy, and the love forming between him and the main heroin as they realise their dreams and move on to a new life while trying to fight against disappearing (moving on to be reborn)Great story a must watch

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I love this series but the only thing is... the dvd box and discs say that episode 1-9 are on disc one and then 10-13 and the ova on the next disc... I was so confused thinking that there were episodes missing on the first disc ... but it must of been a manufacturer mistake because the episodes 8 and 9 are on the second disc

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I bought this on a whim after reading good reviews everywhere. Even tho it was not to my normal anime taste(berserk,ergo proxy,black lagoon etc) i thought it was brilliant. Sad, funny & gorgous to look at i cant recommend it highly enough. Give it a go you wont be sorry.

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This anime broaches the subject of life after death in a very unique way. The first couple of episodes may not make much sense but the characters soon grow on you, so much so that you'll probably be crying like a little girl at the end. I know I almost did.